The Dream of a Contemplative Life
One of my alter ego identities (I have a few!!) is that of a contemplative monastic, living in seclusion and following the ancient rhythms of soul time. The word ‘hour’ comes from the Greek ’hora’ which refers to a measure of the soul, and not a measure of time. Each hour would then come bearing its own gifts and deep meaning which I would spend reflective time excavating. The name of my monastic settlement would be The Monastery of the Sacred Feminine and it would be set in the midst of a forest, with small huts sprinkled here and there around the area, and inhabited by other contemplatives like me. We would converge twice daily to meet in the communal sacred space, there to sing songs of praise and thanksgiving, expressions of our gratitude where each morning we would rise and learn anew what it is to be grateful just to be alive, to awaken and greet the new day as the gift that it is. Together we would re-affirm our commitment to opening our innermost selves to allow the breath of the Divine Feminine to blow through our souls. The rhythms and repetitions of the chants and bells would wash over us and draw us up into the heart of She Who Is. Such a mystical beginning to the day would water our souls with an underground river of love and mercy and carry us through the hours that lie awaiting our presence to them.
Parting company we would each walk slowly and mindfully back to our individual holy places, wherein we have created our own ritual spaces containing totems and talismans on our altars that act as reminders of the Divine. This is the place where we would balance our time with meditation, reading, writing, and holy leisure when whatever it is we create would be done as a dedication and gift to the Sacred. As it comes from Her, it returns to Her. In such a place as this we would be already living in paradise, because our time would not be the time of the outside world but the time of the soul, and so our souls would be linked together in a luminous web of connections between the sensible world and the other world, that which some call heaven. And so it is that I would walk in 2 worlds, keeping one foot in each. The sensible, everyday world would beckon forth those who would care for it for a couple of hours every morning, and this would require leaving my cell to work in the fields or the kitchens. Meals also would call us forth to be eaten silently and with care and attention for the gift that they are. Throughout the day the bells would ring to remind us, time after time after time, to listen, to hear the lesson of the hour, and to look deep inside ourselves to see if our intentions are pure; to see to what extent our wishes and desires are in alignment with the Love of the Eternal Feminine. Later when dusk turns to darkness we would meet again in the sacred space and together sing and chant our gratefulness for the day that She Who Is shared with us, before retiring for meditation and interior searching of our deepest inner selves, to review our actions of the day and the intentions that lay behind them. Then we would lie down upon our little wooden beds and resting our heads upon the pillows, close our eyes and place ourselves, body and souls, into the hands of the Divine Feminine.
Heather Blakey
Lori
soulsister
imogen88
gailkav
Anita Marie
traveller2006
porchsitter
cronelogical
gwenguin1
peacebird
aletta mes
shewolfy728
kvwordsmith
woodnymph
thalia
pearlz
mavenmaker
Alexis
Fascinating reading.
Sounds like the very place I need to be right now. Beautiful!